Category: The Rock & Other Listening Material

As I’ve mentioned (quite often) recently, Weezer is back in business, with a new single, Pork and Beans, hitting the airwaves, and a new album (their third self-titled effort), Weezer (the Red Album) due out on June 24.  This weekend, Karl announced the tracklist for the upcoming album (tracks 1-10 are the album proper, with 11-14 being part of the “Deluxe Edition”):

1. Troublemaker
2. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)
3. Pork and Beans
4. Heart Songs
5. Everybody Get Dangerous
6. Dreamin’
7. Thought I Knew
8. Cold Dark World
9. Automatic
10. The Angel and the One
11. Miss Sweeney
12. Pig
13. The Spider
14. King

Of course, I’m interested in hearing all of these songs.  But most intriguing to me is the title of the 14th and final track.  You didn’t have to, guys.  But it’s appreciated.

So a few days after a preview of the new Weezer single hits the Internet, Los Angeles’ KROQ plays the song for the public.  And it seems like most Weezer fans are happy.

I’ve heard the song (KROQ’s played it a few times already tonight) and as a whole, it’s good.  The song has a lot of different instrumentation (some of which was heard in the amazon preview), and no solo.  Which is quite a surprise, because Rivers can shred and his solos usually serve as a centerpoint to his songs.  But this is different.  And while Rivers name drops some brand names and current famous rappers, it’s for a cause;

The song “was inspired by a record-company meeting where the band was told it needed to record more-commercial material. “I came out of it pretty angry,” Cuomo says. “But ironically, it inspired me to write another song.”
-Rolling Stone

Word around the =w= community is that meeting spurred the recording of two songs for the album, Pork and Beans and another song.  It’s nice to have something radio friendly to appeal to a bigger audience and drive the band’s success.  While I’ll happily listen to PnB, I’m also looking forward to what else is out there.

A little more than a week from today, I’m going to do something new. I’m going to purchase an mp3 single from Amazon.

Over the weekend, Amazon posted a page listing the first single from Weezer’s upcoming sixth album for sale beginning April 22.  Considering that news of Weezer being in the studio has been very hush-hush along with not too much known about the album, and that the “Red Album” itself won’t drop until June, the fact that this song will be out in a little more than a week is quite exciting.

Not to mention the 30 second snippet of the song sounds pretty damn good, too.

There’s been small snippets of two other tracks leaked too, but those really aren’t anything to base an opinion off of.  A remixed version of one, “Automatic” is featured in an upcoming video game.  A few seconds of the other “Everybody Get Dangerous,” is used as background music in the movie “21,” but does not appear on the soundtrack (no word on whether the song will also be used in the upcoming live-action Darkwing Duck feature film).

Still, with a new album and touring coming up this summer, there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening on the Weezer front.  Let’s hope that Pork and Beans is enough to hold us over.

While searching for the latest news in the world of the rock, I was quite surprised to find out that just last week, the Presidents of the United States of America released a new album.

Back in ’95-’96, the Presidents were all over rock airwaves, and rightfully so, with Lump and Peaches, two catchy, witty and poppy rock singles. While the 1996 follow-up, II, had one hit with Mach 5, the Presidents’ career slowed, to the point where they broke up, re-formed and broke up again. Well, they got together again and this month, released These are the Good Times People, a 14-track album of concise, poppy, catchy songs loaded with humor and animal references.

I picked up the album over the weekend and I’m impressed. Three songs that really stand out are Mixed Up S.O.B., Bad Times and So Lo So Hi. These three contain the trademark wittiness and optimism thad make the Presidents’ other hits so darn catchy.

You can listen to the whole album online here. Try it out.

Happy International Weezer Day!

Unlike the last few years, there’s actually some Weezer action to look forward to this year. And of course, I’ll blog about it once it happens.

A few years back, I wrote an article for the Morning Toast about Weezer fans. It isn’t there anymore, so I’m re-posting it here, after the jump:

Continue reading “Remembering That Special Day” →

I was in Borders yesterday and it took me forever to find a copy of Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.
It wasn’t under “C” for Cuomo, nor under “R” for Rivers. It wasn’t in the new releases section. But I finally located it in the “W” section (for Weezer). I paid for it, left the building, and sat in my car for a few minutes with the CD in the player as I read the liner notes, and I was content.
Continue reading “Rivers Cuomo, Alone” →

“Alone” comes out next week.

But Superfriend is here.

Worth the wait? For a weezer fan, yes. It may not make much sense outside of Songs from the Black Hole , but when you consider it’s all Rivers trying to sing two different parts and play the instruments to lay down a story and feel for his scrapped concept album, it’s pretty impressive.

It’s nice to have these pieces (the ones that we already have and the ones that we’ll get next week), but even with everything that Rivers has recorded, SFTBH was never really finished. Because of the band’s reception of his ideas, the release of Return of the Rentals and his own experiences at Harvard, Rivers took what he could from SFTBH and made one of the best albums ever, Pinkerton. Sadly, the rest, like Superfriend got dropped. Some of his dropped demos from all eras of Weezer are real good. Some aren’t. I’m just glad that Rivers (and the label) is now releasing Alone so that we finally get to hear what else there is.

Clips of the rest of Alone are right here.

Looks like someone got the tracklist right after all!

The other night, I was watching one of my favorite shows on the television, VH1 Classic’s We are the 80s. The video for Starship’s We Built This City came on, and while watching it, I noticed something disturbing.

And I don’t mean the fact that I was watching the video for We Built This City.

Anyway, during the video, the band is playing the song for a group of diverse young people. As they play, lights flash and the band and audience are transported to various places in America, including, the Lincoln Memorial:

And we go to a close-up of Honest Abe’s memorial:

And then, all of a sudden lights flash, Abe springs to life and starts to dance:

BUT WAIT!

Is it me, or does that look nothing like Lincoln?

Here’s another look of the memorial come to life:

I don’t know if it’s just me, but that looks more like Robert E. Lee:

I’ve either uncovered a vast historical conspiracy, or aside from being reformed hippies, the members of Starship were Confederate sympathizers.

Despite the declaration on weezer.com that the tracklist of Alone: The Home Recordings Of Rivers Cuomo won’t be published until the album hits the stores, a Japanese media site has made the list public.

From http://www.ro69.jp/news/archive.html?1265, translation available here:

1.Ooh／オー
2.The World We Love So Much ／ザ・ワールド・ウィー・ラヴ・ソー・マッチ※The New Radicalsのソングライター＜Gregg Alexander＞の曲
3.Lemonade／レモネード
4.The Bomb／ザ・ボム　※Ice Cubeのカヴァー
5.Buddy Holly ／バディ・ホリー　※未発表別テイク
6.Chess／チェス
7.Longtime Sunshine　★／ロングタイム・サンシャイン
8.Blast Off!　 ★／ブラスト・オフ！
9.Who You Callin’Bitch?　 ★／フー・ユー・コーリン・ビッチ？
10.Wanda(You’re My Only Love)／ワンダ（ユー・アー・マイ・オンリー・ラヴ）
11.Dude We’re Finally Landing　★／デュード・ウィー・アー・ファイナリー・ランディング
12.Superfriend　★／スーパーフレンド
13.Lover In The Snow／ラヴァー・イン・ザ・ショー
14.Crazy One／クレイジー・ワン
15.This Is The Way／ディス・イズ・ザ・ウェイ
16.Little Diane／リトル・ディアン　※Dionのカヴァー
17.I Wish You Had An Axe Guitar／アイ・ウィッシュ・ユー・ハド・アン・アックス・ギター
18.I Was Made For You／アイ・ワズ・メイド・フォー・ユー

Of course, that all depends on if the google translation is accurate. It could be the list of theme ingredients on the next season of Iron Chef.

It’s a decent list. A few songs that the weezer community already has, but enough new stuff to make the disc interesting.

Aah, who am I kidding? I’ll buy it the day it comes out.

While scouting the Internet for any information on the upcoming Rivers Cuomo solo demo CD, I came across a column published today in which an MTV writer plays the metaphorical role of victim of a “loveless relationship” with Cuomo and the rest of Weezer.

I loved Weezer more than any other act alive (except for maybe Beck). Blue and Pinkerton were two of the albums that defined my teenage years, and I still believe that the latter’s squealy pre-emo makes it one of the decade’s most important discs, on par with, say, Radiohead’s OK Computer. (I even wrote a rather embarrassing pseudo-column about this three years ago.) But ever since bassist Matt Sharp split and the band went on hiatus in the summer of ’97, everything changed; the relationship, for all intents and purposes, was over.

The writer details his dissatisfaction with everything that came out after Pinkerton, as well as whines a little about how he only got 13 minutes to interview Rivers a few years ago.

Honestly, I’ve heard this (and similar thinking) before, and I don’t get it. I know that Pat Wilson (the drummer) semi-seriously said “You have to hate us to be a true fan,” but this is ridiculous.

It’s unrealistic to expect people (and bands) to stay the same–Rivers and the rest of the band have changed. The first hiatus (late ’97-2000) changed the makeup of the band and Rivers’ song production styles. And with each album since (and subsequent break from music making), things have changed for the band and the people that make up the band. They still make quality rock (better than anything else out there), but if it’s not your taste, why whine about how the old music was better?

Music (as with most art) is as much a product of the musician’s place in the world as their personality. Pinkerton came from a very negative place and times weren’t pleasant for Rivers or the rest of the band. For the last four years, we’ve been told there’s diplomacy and consensus when it comes to making music. The band members are grown up, and three of the four of them are married. Why would they want to go back to the days when Rivers told them what to play and when? Why would Rivers want to go back to the days of the Good Life?

Broken, beaten-down can’t even get around
without an old-man cane I fall and hit the ground
Shivering in the cold, I’m bitter and alone
…
Excuse the bitchin’ – I shouldn’t complain
I should have no feeling, ‘cuz feeling is pain
as everything I need is denied me
and everything I want is taken away from me
but who do I got to blame?
Nobody but me

I don’t wanna be a old man anymore
It’s been a year or two since I was out on the floor
Shakin’ booty, makin’ sweet love all the night
It’s time I got back to the Good Life

Or as Rivers responded to a fan question two years ago:

What do you say to those people (fans) who say they want another Pinkerton?
—Michael Silvers

I cant control what I write. I have to accept whatever comes. If its not what someone wants to hear, then at least they can agree with me to love Pinkerton and part as friends.

Addendum: The band’s attitude toward its fans is anything but loveless. Over the past few years, Rivers (and the rest of the band) have welcomed fans on stage to play, welcomed them backstage to hang out and given them boatloads of free video and audio content. Yes, we want more, but you could make the argument that we’re spoiled as it is.